Indian Feast

We used at least half of this week's bag, plus some leftover beets and some local ground beef to make an Indian Feast. Check out these tasty recipes and photos.

Beet Chutney (from Alice Water's Vegetables)




Toss 4 whole red beets with a splash of olive oil and salt. Cover and roast at 400 degrees for 30 minutes to 1 hour until cooked through. Let cool, peel and cut in 1/8" dice.
Combine beets with 1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger, 2 tsp. finely chopped serrano peppers, 1 Tbs. vegetable oil, 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. ground pepper, 1 Tbs. finely chopped cilantro, 1 1/2 tsp. red wine vinegar, 1 tsp. lime juice and 1/4 tsp. cayenne. Beet chutney is a tasty way to use beets and adds a nice punch of flavor to the other dishes.

Cucumber Raita (from 1000 Indian Recipes)


Mix together 2 cups plain yogurt, 2-4 cucumbers seeded and diced, 1 large tomato finely chopped, 1 fresh green chile minced, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp ground pepper, 1/2 tsp. paprika, cilantro and mint.

Okra w/ potatoes and tomatoes

I am not a fan of okra. But, I found this recipe that makes it tasty. I think pre-baking the okra helps cut down on the slime factor.

1 1/2 pounds okra cut into 1/2 inch pieces tossed with vegetable oil and salt. Broil 3-5 minutes, then bake at 450 degrees 3-5 minutes. Set aside.

Peel and chop 2-3 yukon potatoes. Boil in salted water for 15-20 minutes until cooked through. In a mortar and pestle mash 1/2 tsp. garlic and 1/2 tsp ginger.

Heat 1 Tbs. oil in skillet. Add 1 small onion coarsely chopped. Cook 5 min. Add potato and cook 3 minutes. Add ginger garlic paste, 1-3 minced green chiles, 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro and okra. Cook 5 min.

Add 1 Tbs. ground coriander, 1 tsp. ground cumin, 1/4 tsp. ground turmeric, 1/2 tsp. salt and cook 5-7 mintes. Transfer to serving bowl.

Add 15-18 pear or grape tomatoes sliced in half to the hot pan to deglaze, about 2 minutes. Add them to the serving dish and tope with 1/4 tsp. garam masala.

Pan-Fried ground meat kebabs

In a heavy skillet over medium-high heat add 2 Tbs. chickpea flour and stir until golden. Transfer to a small bowl. Add 1 Tbs. coriander seeds to skillet and heat until fragrant and toasted. Add to bowl. Do the same with 3/4 tsp. cumin seeds and 1/4 tsp. whole black pepper. Add whole spices to mortar and pestle and pound until ground.

In a bowl add 1 pound ground beef and add ground spices, chick pea flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1/4 cup finely chopped red onion, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, 1 firm roma tomato diced. Mix together.

Make 8 very thin 1/4" thick patties. Add oil to skillet and cook over medium high heat 1-2 minutes each side. Serve hot.

Open Sesame

Yes, we have been woefully neglectful of this blog but our CSA 2010 is in full swing - it is week 8 already which is totally crazy. Anyway, just wanted to share a very easy, very delicious recipe that originally is intended for spinach but we attempted with a mix of beet greens and chard with tasty results. So since we are getting a lot of greens, we think this recipe is a nice change of pace and could make even the most ardent green-hater or skeptic smile. It is from the book Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat by Naomi Moriyama which isn't exactly a cookbook but a great read with a lot of authentic japanese recipes.

One bunch of greens (book says spinach, but it is great with stronger greens)
2 1/2 tablespoons toasted and ground white sesame seeds (grind in a food processor, chopper or mortar and pestle til coursely chopped)
1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 reduced-sodium soy sauce
Pinch of salt

clean greens. bring large saucepan of water to a boil and cook greens for about a minute, til they are slightly wilted and still green. drain and refresh under cold water. squeeze out excess water.

combine toasted and ground sesame seeds in a small bowl with the sugar, soy and a pinch of salt. stir until well-mixed.

cut the greens into 1-inch pieces, squeeze out excess water and place in a small bowl. pour the sesame mixture over the greens, toss well to combine.

makes a great side dish for any asian dish. we made miso sea bass and coconut rice and the greens matched beautifully. super yum.

Butternut Squash overload

Now that the Fall CSA deliveries have begun, we are starting the inundation of butternut squash and argula. Soon more squash will be bestowed upon us -acorn squash and pumpkins aplenty. Our first blog post was an arugula salad that is easy, delicious and the perfect way to use up the squash we are getting - sweet potatoes could work in this recipe, too.

Enjoy!

Blog Neglect, New Winery Opening

So sorry we have been neglecting the blog lately - we had a few weekends away and some random craziness. The summer share of the CSA is almost over and next week starts the Fall share. We've been pretty simple as of late with our cooking, just grilling up something and serving it with some sauteed greens and roasted potatoes. For a recent potluck party, we made a delicious recipe from Tyler Florence to use up the massive amounts of green beans (and their variations) that we've been getting. Definitely recommend if we get another batch this week. We also have a great recipe for lemongrass chicken that calls for green beans as well and will post that soon.

We are excited for the coming weeks of squash, arugula and other fall vegetables and will get back to posting recipes and other ideas to use them up deliciously.

In the meantime, just wanted to let everyone know about a new winery that is opening up in Amissville, Virginia - Narmada Winery. The grand opening is in November but every weekend until then, they are having tastings so if you get a chance to drive out to beautiful Rappahanock County, please stop by. The wines we have tried are very, very good and they match extremely well with spicier foods such as Indian or Thai.

Zucchini Tart

Our friend who is also doing the PVF CSA but at another location sent us this recipe for a zucchini tart. Can't tell what magazine it is from. She says it is super tasty and could also be adapted to use heirloom tomatoes. She is a great cook so we'll believe her - looks like a delicious weekend project.

Vegan corn chowder

This recipe comes from the Moosewood Daily Special cookbook.

Golden Summer Soup

1 1/2 cups chopped onion
2 Tbs. canola oil
1 cup peeled and diced carrots
2 1/2 cups peeled and diced sweet potato
6 cups water
4 cups summer squash
2 cups corn kernels (about 4 ears)
1/2 tsp. turmeric
4 tsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp salt
1 Tbs. chopped fresh sage
freshly ground black pepper to taste
chopped fresh parsley or snipped fresh chives

Saute onion in oil for 2 min. Add carrots and 1 1/2 cups sweet potatoes, cook 2 min. Add 3 cups of water, cover, and bring to a boil, simmer 10 min, until potatoes are soft. Puree with immersion blender and set aside.

Bring the remaining 3 cups of water to a boil. Add the remaining sweet potatoes and simmer 5 minutes. Add summer squash, corn, turmeric, lemon juice, and salt, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in sage and reserved puree. Add pepper. top with parsley and chives.

We used potatoes instead of sweet potatoes. Delicious.

Yummy Corn Chowder

Yet another corn recipe, but want to take advantage of it while in season. Here is a tried and true recipe from the Hay Day Country Market Cookbook that we will definitely be making this weekend.

2 tbs unsalted butter
2 carrots, scrubbed and diced
3 scallions, white and light green parts finely chopped
1 1/2 cups diced red-skin potatoes (going to use the ones from CSA)
3/4 cup chicken stock
2 cups whole milk
2 cups grated sweet corn (about 8 large ears)
salt and pepper
chives for garnish (optional)

melt butter in heavy-bottomed soup pot. add carrots and scallions, and saute over medium-high heat until the scallions are tender (3-5 minutes). add potatoes and stock, bring to simmer, cover and cook gently until the potatoes are fork-tender, about 10 minutes.

stir in milk and corn, return to a simmer, cook for 3 minutes. season to taste with salt and pepper.

Great Local Magazine

If you haven't already picked one up at MOM's or Whole Foods, keep an eye out for Edible Chesapeake (or to save paper, here it is online) - it's a terrific compilation of area farms and their products, local organic or sustainable restaurants and stores and articles and recipes. Last night we made the "Pasta with Tomatoes and Swiss Chard" from the Summer 2009 issue, using up a good chunk of the ginormous amount of tomatoes we got from the CSA, plus the chard we had left over from last week. It was pretty tasty, especially after adding a generous amount of shredded pecorino romano from Cheesetique.

There are versions of the magazine for cities and areas all around the country (even Vancouver!) - you can see their complete list at www.ediblecommunities.com.

Now back to figuring out what to do with the rest of the veggies. Corn Chowder?

Summer Corn Salsa

What are you planning on making this week? Please share. We need ideas to keep things interesting.

Looks like we are getting a big load of corn, tomatoes and peppers tomorrow. Here's a great sweet corn salsa recipe that will make a dent in the delivery and tastes great with meat, chicken or fish (as a topping or a side dish) or with chips. We made it with some grilled chicken from Let's Meat on the Avenue and I ate half of the bowl just spooning it in my mouth. Yum.

2 tomatoes - diced
1 cup sweet corn (2-3 ears)
1 red pepper diced
1 green pepper diced
1 red onion diced
2 serrano or jalepeno peppers minced
1/3 cup cilantro chopped
2 limes juiced
salt to taste

mix all ingredients. best if you let it sit at least an hour before serving.

Lazy Weekend

We were pretty lazy about cooking this weekend but did make the thai basil corn dip recipe we wrote about in an earlier post to bring over to a friend's house saturday night with the corn we got from the CSA. For breakfast saturday we roasted some potatoes, zucchini, onions and green pepper that we cut up into small pieces (usually just cook this up in a pan like hash browns but it was overflowing so I moved it to a baking sheet) and ate that with some bacon we bought at Del Ray Farmer's market (from Smith Meadow Farms, the zucchini and green pepper were from farmer's market, too.) The leftovers made a nice filling for a quesadilla snack later on that day. We chopped up some CSA tomatoes for a tasty salsa topping.

We'd love to post other people's recipes or ideas for good weekend meals!

Wow with Kra Pow!

Thai food is tasty! It is also healthy and surprisingly very easy to make at home, if you have the ingredients. We were super excited to find a bag of thai basil in our CSA bag this week because the plants we are growing on the deck aren't growing and/or replenishing as fast as we'd like. If you didn't get any this week, there is a great thai grocery store next to the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse on Columbia Pike called Bangkok 54 (also a great thai restaurant) where you can get some for like .99 cents a bag as well as some of the other staples (fish sauce, thai chilis) to make many, many delicious thai dishes.

Here are simple directions to make a thai basil stir fry known at restaurants as Kra Pow or Gra Pow. You can also use the same recipe but add noodles and make Drunken Noodles. Bangkok 54 sells the fresh rice noodles on Fridays - they sell out fast because they rock. We love this dish because you can use any meat you want or even stick to vegetarian. We vary our vegetables with whatever we have - peppers/onions, broccoli, Chinese eggplant, cabbage, or _______ (insert your favorite here). We also vary the meat (tip - using ground chicken or pork saves cutting and cooking time.) It honestly tastes as good or better than at a restaurant and the great thing about this recipe is that you can control the amount of oil and the ratio of meat/vegetables to make it super healthy.

OK - you need: thai basil (1 bag picked and washed), fish sauce, soy sauce, chilis, meat, vegetables, garlic (1 or 2 cloves), sugar, water, vegetable oil. Chop vegetables, garlic and chilis (1-2, or more if you like spicy). Rice if you aren't using noodles.

First - Put rice on if you are making. Put a splash of oil in hot wok or pan, cook vegetables to desired consistency. Move to bowl. Then, put chilis and garlic in wok with another splash of oil and cook meat. When meat is cooked, throw in equal parts (2 tbs, but we now put 1/4 cup because we like sauce) of fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar and water (can go a little easy on the sugar if you want). Then mix vegetables back in to pan, put in basil. If you bought the rice noodles, cut and peel apart and put in pan. Mix til hot and covered in yumminess.

Thai basil stir fry - done!

Easy as Soup

We pick up our CSA vegetables after work Wednesday and try to come out of the gate strong that night making something that uses up a good amount of vegetables all at once. Since K has yoga and doesn't come home until around 9:15 - it's up to me to cook dinner so I tend to stick with easy recipes like soup or stir fry since K is the meat griller, cooker and master chef of the house.

So last night I made one of our favorite and easiest soup recipes, Middle Eastern Chickpea Soup. Even though it is super hot and humid out, I could eat soup every night. This one is taken from Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special but since I have made it so many times, I have kind of condensed the instructions into less steps. Check out the cookbook for the recipe in its entirety, but here is my summarized version. It used the potatoes, tomatoes, onions and the swiss chard from the CSA.

Cook 2 cups diced potatoes in water until soft. Meanwhile, chop a large onion (about 2 cups) and cook in pan with a little olive oil then add 1 tbs cumin, 1 tbs coriander, 1 tsp tumeric, 1/8 -1/4 tsp cayenne (depending on your spice preference) and some salt and pepper - about 10 minutes.

If you don't have vegetable stock, save 4 cups of the potato water when potatoes are done to reuse as soup base. If you do have stock, drain potatoes when soft and add 4 cups broth. Add two cans drained and rinsed chickpeas to pot and puree. If you don't have an immersion blender or hand mixer, a real blender works (recipe actually has you do all these steps separately in a blender, pouring each item back into the pot when pureed.) Add onions to mixture and stir. Add 2 cups chopped tomatoes and 2 cups chopped swiss chard or spinach to soup. Salt and pepper to taste.

Last night we received a bag of sweet potato greens in our share so I added a handful of those leaves to the chard. We still have potatoes out the wazoo so tonight are going to roast some chicken and potatoes (didn't do it the other night as we planned since babysitting and Los Tios called) and have a friend coming over to help eat them.

Frankenstein Ragout

After going out to dinner on Friday (Rasika, amazing!) and to a bbq on Saturday, we had to make yesterday count as far as using up a lot of the vegetables we have accumulated this week. Since the bulk of our stash was zucchini, we thought some sort of ratatouille or ragout would be good. We found several different versions in various cookbooks but we were feeling lazy and didn’t want to run to the grocery store so we found one to use as a jumping off point and made many substitutions and additions. The result = delicious.

We think this could be made with a wide variety of vegetables so it will definitely remain in our arsenal as a good ‘kitchen sink’ recipe when we want to use up what we have and be healthy to boot. For yesterday’s version (which made more than enough for dinner and today’s lunch), first, we satueed some sweet italian sausage from Smith Meadow Farms (Del Ray Farmer’s Market) in a pot (took out of the casing). When that was done, we put the sausage in a bowl and then cut up 3 carrots, 2 of the giant, light purple/green squash/zucchini we got in the CSA, a big purple onion, and the long beans from the CSA two weeks ago all into tiny, bite-sized pieces and cooked them in the same pot. The sausage was so lean that there wasn’t any fat or oil to drain. Nice.

While the vegetables were cooking, we got some pasta going in another pot. After vegetables have gone for around 10 minutes, we added 2 ½ cups of vegetable stock, 3 chopped tomatoes and a handful of basil leaves, both from the CSA. We also added some corn we cut off of the cob, just to use it up. When the pasta was almost finished, we drained and threw into the vegetable/broth mixture so it could absorb some of the liquid. Then we added the cooked sausage and two cubes of garlic scape pesto (from CSA's 'In the Bag') and mixed everything up.

The original recipe called for mushrooms and white beans in the ragout and it wasn’t served with pasta. Instead of basil pesto, it had you make a marjoram one. Our version was pretty delicious and it used up a lot of our vegetables. Tonight we are going to make shrimp tacos with roasted jalepeno quinoa (will use up cabbage for taco topping) and tomorrow we are going to roast some chicken and vegetables to use up the beets, potatoes and chard we have left. Then we should be cleared out and ready for Wednesday’s delivery to start over again. :)

Anyone else have some good recipes that use a lot of vegetables at once?

Basil, Basil!!

The basil from the CSA has been amazing this year. Today we got two huge bunches and we aren't going to have any time to use them until Sunday. Here are some tips for keeping basil fresh.

Remove the bottom leaves and cut a quarter inch from the stems and set in a glass of water, just like you would fresh flowers. They will stay fresh for days, even a week. Be sure never to put the basil in the fridge, or the leaves will turn black.

My favorite way to use up lots of basil is to make pesto. You can make a huge batch and freeze it for another time. There is nothing better then pulling out some frozen pesto from the freezer in Winter and getting a taste of Summer. You can freeze a whole batch in one container or freeze cubes in an ice cube tray. Once frozen you can put the cubes in a freezer bag and pull out a cube to add to eggs, soup, or spread on bread.

Basil Pesto

2 cups fresh basil
4 garlic cloves chopped
1 cup walnuts or pine nuts
1 cup olive oil
1 cup parmesan grated
1/4 cup romano grated

Use a food processor or blender and blend all ingredients well. This recipe is meant to be used with 2 lbs of pasta.

We've also been getting super fragrant lemon basil and made a tasty stir fry with it. We haven't tried it yet, but think lemon basil would also taste amazing with fish.

Beef stir fry with lemon basil

1 1b eye of round steak sliced thinly
2 Tbs brown sugar
2 Tbs fish sauce
6 thai chilis
5 cloves garlic
1 Tbs chopped shallot
3 Tbs lemon basil
3 Tbs lemon juice

Pound chilis, garlic and shallots with a mortar and pestle or blend in food processor. Add brown sugar and fish sauce. Mix with beef slices and marinade for one hour. Stir fry the beef until cooked through, toss in the lemon basil leaves. Turn off heat and add lemon juice. Serve with rice.

We served this with a separate stir fry of squash and cabbage. The meat we used came from Mount Vernon Farm.

Check out the Washington Post article from today about the Local Buyers Club. They deliver meat from Mount Vernon Farm and have other products from several farms.

Anyone have any other recipes for basil?

Roast 'em if you got 'em

Even though today was a hot summer day, I had a craving for roasted chicken and vegetables. It was a great way to use up the potatoes, onion, fennel, carrots, beets, summer savory and greens. We picked up some bone-in chicken breasts at My Organic Market (MOMs) from a local farm in Maryland.

We cut up the potatoes and beets into 1/2 inch cubes, the carrots were tiny so we left them whole, the fennel and onions were also small so we quartered them, basically trying to get everything about the same size. Then we put everything on a baking sheet, tossed it with olive oil, summer savory, salt and pepper and popped it in a 400 degree oven.



Then we took more summer savory and rubbed it under the skin of the chicken breast along with salt and pepper and placed the chicken on a second baking sheet. This also went into the same oven. The vegetables took about 55 minutes to cook and the chicken took about 40 minutes. Meanwhile we washed and chopped the beet greens and radish greens. Once the chicken was done we took it off of the baking sheet and put the greens on the same baking sheet. Put this in the oven for about 5 minutes until wilted. Done.



This dish was so simple and the flavors of all of the vegetables were really amazing.  If you are willing to heat up the house for an hour or so, this is a great way to use up a bunch of vegetables all at once.

Farmers market fruit and corn

Despite being inundated with an amazing array of vegetables from our CSA every week, we just can't resist visiting the Del Ray farmer's market on saturday mornings to see if there are any berries or fruit for breakfast and snacking. While there this morning, we noticed that fresh corn has already started to make its debut so picked up a bunch. Here is a great recipe we found in a book called "Cooking with Asian Leaves" by Devagi Sanmugam and Christopher Tan that we actually bought after getting a few interesting herbs from the CSA (korean mint, malabar spinach and sweet potato leaves) last year. We love cooking Asian food anyway so this book definitely added some great recipes to the arsenal. This one calls for Thai Basil, which we are growing on our deck and which you can buy at Bangkok 54's awesome store on Columbia Pike for like .99 cents a bag. We've served this dish as an appetizer, with crackers and chips and other dips. It could also be a great topping or side dish for fish or meat.

Stir-fried Basil Corn

(this cookbook was published in Singapore and we think we bought it online from a UK site, so all the measurements are in grams - we did our best to convert before posting but should taste great even if some parts are a little more or a little less.)

3 tbs coriander root (some Asian grocery stores sell this, we used cilantro stems/leaves)
4 cloves garlic
3 chilis
2 tbs cooking oil
2 1/4 cups corn kernels (can use frozen)
1 tbs grated palm sugar (gula melaka or could use brown sugar, plain sugar)
2 tbs fish sauce
1/3 cup thai basil leaves

- pound coriander root, garlic and chilis coarsely
- heat oil in a wok. add the pounded ingredients and cook, stirring constantly for about 1 minute or until aromatic
- add in the corn kernels, grated palm sugar, fish sauce and basil leaves.
- stir-fry over high heat for about 5-8 minutes until the corn is cooked (with fresh summer sweet corn cook only 2-3 minutes)
- serve hot (it's also good at room temperature or even cold)

Enjoy!

Week six's bounty

This week we finally got a bag that had more that just lettuce and greens in it. We love them, but it's been hard to find a way to eat them all each week. This week's bag came with onions, garlic, potatoes, cucumber, carrots, lettuce, squash, beets, radish, fennel, chard and summer savory.

Here are some of the things that we made this past week:

**Potato-Chorizo Tacos (we used the potatoes and onion from the bag this week and cabbage from last week's bag)

3 potatoes cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 2 cups)
Salt
12 oz. fresh chorizo sausage (remove casing)
1 small onion, finely chopped

Bring one quart of water to boil in a medium pot add 2tsp. salt to the water and potatoes. Simmer until tender about 10 min. Drain.
In a large skillet, over med. heat, combine chorizo and onion. break up sausage and cook 10 minutes until sausage is cooked through. Drain excess fat.
Add potatoes to pan and cook over med. heat about 8 minutes.
Meanwhile, warm corn tortillas.
Serve with tomatillo salsa and avocado. Or, blend the two together to make a sauce
Top with thinly sliced cabbage (toss cabbage with lime juice and salt)

Check out Nellie's market (formerly Tanya's market, before that, Chirligua market) at the corner of Mt. Vernon Ave. and Glebe Rd. It's right next to the 7-11. They have great corn tortillas and you can find other Latin American ingredients for crazy low prices (30 corn tortillas, 6 limes and 6 fatty jalepenos for literally $1.69.)

**Beet salad with goat cheese

Once again we have used the Giada recipe as a base to make a roast beet salad. We have thrown in as many vegetables from the bag as we can - lettuce, cucumber, roast beets, and radish. Also, we have found a local goat cheese that we really like from Firefly Farms. They can be found at the Dupont farmer's market on Sundays and most of the time at the Whole Foods in Alexandria. It is very mild and creamy and works great in salads and pasta.

** Penne with Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Goat Cheese

There is a farmer's market in the cafeteria of the House of Representative's Longworth building. Since I work near there I like to see what they have to offer. This past week the farmer was from the Northern Neck of VA and had an offering of delicious looking tomatoes. She had samples to taste of the yellow cherry ones. They were amazing - so sweet and delicious. I bought 2 pints and brought them home. I found a good looking recipe from Epicurious.com that slow roasts the tomatoes and would use up some of the basil we got from last week (we kept them fresh in a glass of water) and some leftover goat cheese and we made yet another salad to go with it. Very delicious.

** Grilled Zucchini and Halloumi salad

If you have never tried grilled Halloumi cheese, you should. It is delicious, especially when grilled (or pan-fried). You can find it at Cheestique and MOMs on Mt. Vernon Ave. I saw this recipe in the food section of the Washington Post this past week. We haven't made it yet, but are planning on making this with some lamb kabobs (from Mount Vernon Farms).

Enjoy and keep sharing those recipes.

Eating locally on the road

While planning a recent road trip, we came across this great website called Eat Well Guide that lists restaurants, farmer's markets, orchards and stores that support fresh, locally grown and sustainably produced food and products. You can search by a variety of categories and they have a mapping tool to plan your route.

We ate at one of the restaurants the site suggested during our trip and it was definitely one of the highlights. :)

We love soup

We love soup in our house and it is a great way to use up the abundance of greeens we have been getting. Check out this recipe from fellow CSA member Meg. We will definitly try this one. Thanks for sharing. K

Portuguese Green Soup (from Gourmet w/ modifications and comments)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch collard greens, center stems cut away, leaves thinly sliced
1 pound fully cooked spicy sausage (such as linguiça, andouille, or hot links), cut into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
5 3/4 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 3/4 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, diced
1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

Heat olive oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic. Sauté until onion is soft and golden , about 5 minutes. Add collard greens and sauté until wilted, about 4 minutes. Add sausage and sauté 5 minutes. Add broth and potatoes. Simmer soup uncovered until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Transfer 2 cups soup (without sausage) to processor. Blend until smooth; return to pot of soup and bring to simmer. Mix in crushed red pepper. Season with salt and black pepper.

Meg's modifications: I used TJs chicken and jalapeno sausages. I used 1/2 the EVOO and next time won't use any, just Fat Free Chicken Broth. I used my braun and pureed in the pot, probably too much. I think next time I will sieve out the potatoes and some broth and puree that. I didn't need any salt and pepper - it was well spiced.

Sorrel? Sorrel!

One of the cool things about the CSA is the wide variety of vegetables you get each week - ones you've never tried before or in some cases, even heard of.  Last year, we received sorrel and after some recipe investigating online, we found this delicious and easy recipe for chilled sorrel soup on foodnetwork.com and made it several times last summer.  Sorrel is very good for you - a rich source of iron and potassium and contains vitamins A and C.  In last week's delivery, there was a bag of sorrel so we dug out the recipe and made it for dinner tonight.   Super easy and perfect for a hot night.  

4 tbs unsalted butter (tonight I used a little olive oil instead)

1 med onion chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 lb. sorrel leaves, stems removed

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

3 cups vegetable stock

1 tbs chopped parsley + extra for garnish

1 tsp coarse salt

1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

plain yogurt garnish

Heat butter in saucepan.  Add onions and saute until soft, 10 min.  Add garlic, 2 min.  Add sorrel and celery and cook 5 min. or until sorrel is wilted.  Add stock, parsley, salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Simmer 20 min.

Blend, adjust seasonings - then chill.  Serve with yogurt garnish.